Bonding Over Bad Art
by Shiva-J
Summary: After his breakup with Daria, Tom goes to the local Art Museum and bumps into Lawndale High's resident art teacher, Claire Defoe. As they bond over the bad art on display, is it friendship or something more? (Response to the Iron Chef Challenge: Random Pairing. Told in Three Parts)
1. Bonding Over Bad Art (I)

**Bonding Over Bad Art (I)**

To get over his breakup blues, Tom Sloane decided that he needed to indulge in what he did best.

Snark the hell out of something to validate his worth as a human being.

So he put in the work (flipped a coin) and decided to head to the generically named, County Museum of Modern Art.

With his mother up to her eyeballs in this sort of thing, one did pick up on a few things.

Like how the politics of the art world worked.

"And the worst paintings in the collection of the regular art museum are dumped here and labeled 'modern' to get saps in the door." Tom noted as he became one of them.

But he wasn't here to fall for the trick.

Rather, to make fun of it.

He was barely in the main foyer when he spotted his first target, a picture of a man taking a picture of a picture over and over.

"How original." Tom said to him with contempt and a hint of smugness.

He didn't have to take more than two steps before seeing something that jogged his memory.

"A painting of a clown crying," Tom mused, "I'm pretty sure I saw this at 'art in the park', and pretty much anywhere that sells paintings."

It was more of the same the further he went, and if he hadn't spent a good chunk of his life in places with actual art, Tom would be despairing the fate of the medium by the time he saw the third abomination.

After walking through a so-called 'found art' piece, in the form of a train box car, Tom felt ready for a little break and found a bench to sit on.

About a minute into his break, a figure came into his line of sight.

A handsome older woman in a flowing purple dress, her red hair braided down her back, a long blue shell necklace hung down the front, and a pair of matching blue hoop earrings swayed as she moved.

For some reason she was taking pictures of every single piece of art in the room with a professional camera, and snickering like she was pulling a prank.

Tom raised an eyebrow and just watched until she reached the box car and decided to introduce himself.

To be polite he waited until she was done taking her pictures of the lazy man's excuse for art.

Tom used all of his charm and wit to make a good first impression.

"Hey."

The woman turned, looking slightly curious.

"Hello," she replied politely to the boy, "Do you need something?"

Tom gave her a sly half-grin, "Just curious as to your enthusiasm about this place."

She snickered again, "I'm not enthusiastic about this place. Rather about my project."

"Project?"

The woman, Tom discovered, had a radiant smile, "I'm creating a mixed media piece of my own, using pictures of bad art that I'll splash with cow's blood that I snagged from the local butcher."

"Cool," Tom answered honestly, "But how are you going to keep it fresh?"

She shrugged, "if Tracey Emin can get away with putting her bed and stained knickers in galleries, I think I can get away with necrotic cow's blood."

Tom laughed, "Too true, too true, but the mention of dead cow has made me kind of hungry. Interested in getting some food after you finish up?"

The woman laughed, "You are a bold one."

But against her better judgment, she was giving him a considering eye.

So she decided to see if she knew of him and asked, "What's your name anyway?"

The lad smiled a bit more, his sea-green eyes danced wonderfully in the light, "Tom, Tom Sloane. yours?"

"Claire Defoe." she replied politely, even while getting the funny feeling that she should know that name from somewhere.

Tom seemed surprised for a second before covering it up by asking if he could tag along.

"Why not?" Claire replied while fiddling with her camera, "Plenty of material here to work with."

"And to mock." Tom added with emphasis.

"And to mock," Claire agreed, "With love of course."

"This is going to be interesting." Tom thought as he took a step back and watched Claire size up the room before selecting a poorly executed cubist deconstruction for her own purposes.


	2. Bonding Over Bad Art (II)

**Bonding Over Bad Art (II)**

With the remains of their meal bundled up into the burger wrappers and forgotten on the tray, Tom patted his full belly and said, "I never realized that greasy food and bad art went together. I should do this more often."

Across from him, Claire laughed at the teen's words, "Inspiration can be found anywhere, you just have to go hunting for it. That's all."

Tom smiled a bit wistfully, he had heard something similar not all that long ago.

From a girl that he was pretty sure had been a recent student of Defoe's.

But Tom shoved that thought aside and replied, "So care to fill me in on what your project is going to look like?"

Claire shook her head, "I can't, because I haven't made it yet. You see how I make art is through what I call 'preparation for spontaneity'."

Unlike so many others, Tom instantly got the gist of what she was saying.

"So you set yourself up in advance for a period of random creativity and accept the results as is?"

Claire was beaming as she nodded yes, glad that she had met someone that really understood what she was about.

"Plus he _is_ easy on the eyes." a little voice whispered to her.

Claire did her best to ignore it, she really did.

After all, even if Tom was 'of age', he was decades younger.

It wasn't right to think of a teenager like that.

Right?

* * *

After leaving Cluster Burger, Claire had to accept another ride from Tom Sloane, since the nearest bus stop was several blocks away, and the bus itself wouldn't arrive for two hours.

When she had gone to the museum everything had been planned out, she had gone by bus, then would take pictures for two hours, then take the 5:30 bus back into Lawndale proper and walk the rest of the way home.

"Even with an increase in salary I still can't afford a car." Claire thought sadly as she got into the passenger side.

Defoe informed Sloane of her address and on the way they continued to talk.

She found out that, yes, he was one of _those_ Sloanes, though he clearly didn't use their money beyond what he absolutely had to.

The car he was driving was a wreck away from being a clunker.

In turn, Tom learned that, yes, she was the art teacher at Lawndale High.

The one that his exes had had a very high opinion of.

But before he could lose himself in the past, Tom's car pulled up in front of Defoe's apartment complex.

Before Claire could get out of the car however, he slipped her a card with his name and number on it.

She took it with a smile and began to open the door, but paused with a glance out of the window.

"What's wrong?" Tom asked as her face fell.

"One of my roommates is outside." Claire replied and pointed at the long-haired, long in the tooth, holdover from the sixties.

"I take it as a bad sign?" Tom asked even as the guy waved them over, a joint dangling from his lips.

Claire just nodded and got out of the car, curious Tom followed in her wake.

The man drawled, "Heeeyyy, you can't goooo up, we're in sexxx-zile."

Claire just sighed.

Tom scratched his head.

"Sex-exile is when my other two roommates decide to drop acid and have loud, non-stop sex." Claire explained flatly.

Tom began to chuckle, but stopped when he realized she was being serious.

"So..." Tom began to asked, "Where do you go from here?"

Claire sighed, thinking about couch surfing at one of her colleague's places with a cringe.

Tom mused for half a second before saying, "You can crash with me tonight."

Before Defoe could begin to voice her objects, Tom said with a surprising level of authority.

"I insist."

It would take Claire Defoe a while to figure out that, whatever his rebellion, Tom Sloane was very much his father's son.

He was a born and bred leader of men.

* * *

About half an hour later, Claire Defoe found herself in one of the biggest bedrooms she had ever seen.

"It's the most expensive one for sure." she thought to herself as she surveyed Tom Sloane's bedroom.

Which in truth was more like an apartment within Sloane Manor.

The largest of the rooms had Tom's bed in it of course, along with enough gizmos and gadgets to last a lifetime.

There was a large bathroom, with a marble tub that bordered on a small pool.

"He even has a sitting room." Claire thought with bemusement as Tom showed her said sitting room.

He then pointed at another door and informed her that it led to one of the guest bedrooms.

When Claire raised an eyebrow at the implications, Tom turned quite sheepish.

"My Dad installed it on my fourteenth birthday behind my mother's back," He explained with a hint of red, "And yes it was for the obvious reasons. But I've never used it before."

Claire chuckled, "I don't think helping out starving art teachers was what your Father had in mind."

"No, he did not."

There was a moment of silence before they both laughed, hard.

* * *

While Claire got herself settled for the night, Tom Sloane was in the sitting room, but he was pacing instead of sitting.

His thoughts were filled with visions of her hair, her eyes, her scent.

_Her face..._

In that moment, Tom Sloane decided that, if nothing else, he would help Defoe in any way he could.

"She deserves better than what she's got." Tom thought to himself firmly.

For some reason he wondered if there were any openings for an art teacher in a High School within driving distance of Bromwell.


	3. Bonding Over Bad Art (III)

**Bonding Over Bad Art (III)**

Since she had first met Tom a month before at the County Museum of Modern Art, Claire had to admit that she hadn't feel so alive in _years_.

It was with a laugh that she recalled that Tom had been forced to introduce her to his family when Elsie had barged into her brother's bedroom the very next morning after she had crashed in a guest bedroom.

Granted neither of them had been doing much other than watching TV together, trying to wake up.

However Elsie had drawn her own (wrong) conclusions and had left, singing the refrain of 'Mrs. Robinson', much to Tom's irritation.

His parents, Angier and Kay Sloane took everything in a weary sort of stride, though Tom's explanation was clearly taken as though they believed he was lying but they would pretend he wasn't just to save face.

After that awkward breakfast, Tom had driven her back to her apartment where they discovered her roommates had apparently run out of steam in the early hours.

She just wished that they had kept it in the bedroom and not the living room where everyone else had to see them.

But after getting over the shock, Tom managed to scribble down his number, and Claire gave him hers.

Later that day he had swung by, and had politely declined the joint offered by one of the nameless roommates, and had found her with a bunch of freshly developed photographs and a big canvas.

His offering of coffee and donuts was very much welcome and to her surprise Tom had a good critical eye as she went through the pictures, planning out ways to cut them up and how they should be positioned on the canvas.

Through the week things between them held to a pattern, Tom would come by, deliver color commentary on her roommates latest antics, then either he'd watch her work on her projects, or he'd whisk her away to do things like snag food from some pretty fancy restaurants, or explore the depths of Dega Street and ponder the mystery of how such a seedy place had emerged in a town like Lawndale.

But what exactly it all _meant_ was a bit uncertain, were they friends, or were they going to become something more?

Then, during a nighttime stroll at High Hills Park, they had watched the local Satanists invoking the Beast (while waving around their old gardening tools), and she had found herself staring into Tom's bright green eyes.

They had seemed like two dancing emeralds and in that moment were the most captivating thing she had ever beheld.

Before her mind caught up to it, Claire found herself wrapping her arms around the young man and kissing him.

Time seemed to slip away and she wasn't sure when she had pulled away. But when she did all she could say was, "I- I shouldn't have done that."

Tom had suppressed a sigh, having expecting something like this to occur.

He replied, "Why not? We're both adults, and there's a mutual attraction, right?"

At some point Tom had put his arms around her waist and they were hip to hip in the middle of the (mostly empty) public park.

Claire nodded, "True but you are much younger than me, it wouldn't be right for me to take advantage..."

Tom cut her off with a kiss of his own, and it was one for the record books.

Afterward he gave her a content little grin, "Trust me Claire, neither one of us is being taken advantage of. We are very much equals, otherwise there wouldn't be much point."

That had made her smile, and had marked the end of the ambiguity.

* * *

At the end of the first month, with the sunshine pouring through the big bay windows, Tom admired the slumbering figure of Claire Defoe, her only clothing the sheets of his bed.

"God she's beautiful." he thought to himself as he climbed out to slip into the bathroom to deal with nature's call.

After that business, Tom slipped into one of his bathrobes and watched Claire still sleeping, leaning on the doorsill as he did so.

He couldn't help but muse on the irony that it had been much easier to convince her to sleep with him than to take the job at Rutherford B. Hayes High School.

Then Tom's inner voice reminded him that Claire had some ties in Lawndale, not many but certainly more than he did.

"But," Tom thought back, "This job will pay better, give Claire more time for her art, and the apartment she'll be living in won't have a bunch of unwanted parasitic roommates."

The fact that the apartment was about fifteen minutes from Bromwell didn't hurt either.

Tom knew that his parents liked Claire, his mother in particular had bonded with her due to their mutual interest in Art.

But he suspected that they viewed her as a fling, or as Elsie had so crudely put it, "Thomas Sloane's own personal Mrs. Robinson, just add penis!"

It had taken every fiber of his being not to deck her for that.

However as Claire slowly woke up, with the sunlight making her nude form seem to glow, it confirmed once more for Tom that this wasn't a fling.

This was forever.

**THE END**


End file.
